


A Study in Crutchie

by imaginationisrainbowcoloured



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Canon Disabled Character, Character Study, Crutchie (Newsies) Needs a Hug, Disability, Disabled Character, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Minor Canonical Character(s), Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginationisrainbowcoloured/pseuds/imaginationisrainbowcoloured
Summary: It wasn’t as if Crutchie hated his leg or anything, it was as much a part of him as anything else and hating yourself never got you anywhere. It was just… painful.Everyone else could run and jump and climb without any issue. Everyone else could face the winter weather without any issue, just wrapping up more than usual and continuing their normal routine of running and jumping and climbing, while Crutchie had to deal with extra pain thanks to the cold and couldn’t even do those things normally.
Relationships: Crutchie & Jack Kelly
Kudos: 9





	A Study in Crutchie

It wasn’t as if Crutchie hated his leg or anything, it was as much a part of him as anything else and hating yourself never got you anywhere. It was just… painful. Everyone else could run and jump and climb without any issue. 

Everyone else could face the winter weather without any issue, just wrapping up more than usual and continuing their normal routine of running and jumping and climbing, while Crutchie had to deal with extra pain thanks to the cold and couldn’t even do those things normally.

The Delancey brothers were the only ones who treated him as equal to everyone else, really, and wasn’t that ironic? They didn’t care that he was crippled, they just cared that he was a part of Jack Kelly’s group and therefore available to beat up as they would beat up Racer or Albert or Boots. They didn’t act like he was fragile, they mocked him with the same insults as they mocked everyone else.

Jack, on the other hand, treated him like he was some fragile child. Checking up on him every time he saw him- how’s your leg? Do you need anything? Want me to carry your bag? Crutchie couldn’t even bring himself to snap at Jack about it, but it was slowly internalised over a few years that he couldn’t do anything without help.

It got him sympathy, Racer always joked about how he could use it to get help with anything, and those jokes hurt more than he would admit. Alongside jokes about his ‘useless’ leg. His ‘useless’ body. His useless self. But it was easier to joke along with them, laugh at the comments that weren’t meant to hurt him. It was easier than telling them, than making them awkward around him, to watch them bite their tongues every time they wanted to say something. It was just easier to live with the jokes that made his friends feel more comfortable. 

He watched them, their able-bodied jumping and spinning, Racer’s dancing that he desperately wanted to join in with sometimes. And he watched his friends get into relationships with the people they liked, and he was truly happy for them- especially once Jack stopped talking about running away to Santa Fe because he was genuinely happy for the first time since he was young. He was happy for them, but every time he watched them kiss it was another nail through his heart, another time to remember that he was unlovable as a small, crippled child.

Jack noticed sometimes, would ask him what was wrong and he would laugh it off or say it was just his leg. He couldn’t tell Jack the truth, that he was realising at 15 that he was unlovable. That he was realising at 15 that he would have to deal with the pain for the rest of his life.

However long that would even be.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhh minor vent that i thought i might as well post  
> lmao relating to the disabled characters in a media bc they'd *get it*? couldn't be me.
> 
> anyway i much prefer crutchie in the bw version bc i just find 92sies crutchie so annoying??????


End file.
